The Wikipedia Articles for Creation (AfC) Review and Approval Process

AfC is Wikipedia's formal peer-review submission pipeline for editors who cannot publish new articles directly to the main encyclopedia. Unregistered users, accounts without autoconfirmed status (fewer than 10 edits or under 4 days old), and editors with a declared Conflict of Interest (COI) must route every new article through AfC — direct creation to mainspace is blocked for these accounts. This is an administrative and editorial process, not a drafting tool. The pipeline enforces quality standards before a subject enters the public encyclopedia record.

What Is the Wikipedia Articles for Creation (AfC) Pipeline?

The AfC pipeline is a structured draft submission and review queue where new articles wait for evaluation by experienced Wikipedia editors before promotion to mainspace. When a draft enters the queue, a yellow "Pending submission" banner template appears at the top of the draft page, signaling active reviewer status to both the submitter and the wider editorial community.

Standard Wikipedia editors cannot review AfC submissions. AfC reviewers are a specialized group holding new page patrol or autopatrolled rights — permissions granted only after a sustained, high-quality editing history on the encyclopedia. These reviewers evaluate incoming drafts against Wikipedia's core content policies, primarily notability and reliable sourcing requirements, before accepting or declining each submission.

How Long Is the Average Wikipedia AfC Review Timeline?

AfC review timelines range from a few days to over 2 months, depending on queue volume and draft complexity. The backlog fluctuates significantly across calendar periods.

The table above reflects historical AfC queue patterns. Actual wait times vary and no third party can guarantee a specific review window.

One policy consequence affects every draft sitting in the queue: WP:CSD#G13. Under this speedy deletion criterion, any draft left unedited for 6 months — whether in the AfC queue or in draftspace — becomes eligible for speedy deletion without further discussion. Submitters must make at least one substantive edit within that window to reset the clock and protect the submission from automatic removal.

How Do Reviewers Evaluate Notability During an AfC Review?

AfC reviewers evaluate notability using Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline (GNG) as the primary quality threshold. The GNG requires that a subject have received significant coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources.

"Significant coverage" means sources address the subject directly and in depth — not passing mentions. Reviewers cross-reference each cited source against 3 reliability criteria: editorial independence from the subject, editorial oversight (ruling out self-published or user-generated content), and substantive depth beyond routine announcements. A press release, a company-issued biography, or a directory listing does not satisfy the GNG regardless of the outlet that republishes it.

Reviewers also verify that sources are secondary rather than primary. Primary sources — the organization's own website, regulatory filings, or press office output — demonstrate existence, not notability. The GNG is built around what independent third parties have chosen to say about a subject, not what the subject has said about itself.

For subjects with subject-specific notability guidelines (musicians under WP:MUSIC, companies under WP:CORP, academics under WP:PROF), reviewers evaluate those criteria first. Clearing a subject-specific standard satisfies the GNG automatically.

What Are the Most Common Reasons for AfC Draft Rejections?

AfC drafts are declined for 4 primary reasons, ordered by frequency of occurrence.

1. Lack of notability or inadequate sourcing. The most common barrier. A draft citing only press releases, company websites, social media, or interview-based profiles fails the GNG. Reviewers require at least 2–3 sources with independent, substantive, secondary coverage of the subject.
2. Promotional tone. Drafts written with marketing language — peacock terms like "leading," "world-class," "innovative," or "award-winning" without attribution — violate WP:NPOV. Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy requires every claim to be attributed or written in encyclopedic, measured language. Reviewers decline drafts that read more like a press kit than an encyclopedia entry.
3. Conflict of interest or undisclosed paid editing. Editors with a financial or professional relationship to the subject must disclose that relationship on their user page or the draft's talk page before submitting. Failure to disclose — whether by an in-house communications team or an outside agency — violates Wikipedia's Terms of Use. Reviewers who detect undisclosed COI may decline the draft and flag the account for administrative review.
4. Copyright violations and AI-generated prose. Wikipedia prohibits text copied from external sources without proper licensing. LLM-generated submissions are explicitly banned under current policy. Volunteer reviewers use detection tools to identify AI-written text patterns, and flagged drafts are eligible for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#G12 or declined with a formal AI-content notice. AI-generated submissions are not a gray area — they are rejected on discovery.

How to Overcome an AfC Decline and Resubmit Your Draft

Recovery from an AfC decline starts with identifying whether the draft was declined or rejected — these are distinct outcomes with different forward paths.

A declined draft is not ready for mainspace but can be improved and resubmitted. The reviewer leaves a specific decline template explaining what the draft lacks. A rejected draft carries a finding that the topic is fundamentally unsuited for Wikipedia — usually because it fails every applicable notability standard — and the reviewer's template will explicitly state the draft should not be resubmitted.

For declined drafts, recovery follows 5 steps:

1. Read the decline template in full. Each template links to the specific policy or guideline the draft violated.
2. Identify the primary failure — sourcing, tone, or COI disclosure — before making any edits.
3. Address the reviewer's concerns on the draft's talk page. A brief, respectful note explaining your planned revisions signals good faith and documents your reasoning.
4. Revise the draft. Replace inadequate sources with independent, secondary coverage. Rewrite promotional language in neutral, encyclopedic prose. Add required COI disclosures if missing.
5. Resubmit via the submit button on the draft page. The draft re-enters the AfC queue and receives a new reviewer.

Drafts stuck in multiple decline cycles — where each revision misses the underlying sourcing problem or introduces new policy violations — benefit from professional intervention. A qualified Wikipedia editor can audit your draft's source quality against current GNG standards and identify the exact revisions needed before resubmission. Get professional Wikipedia editor assistance to stop the decline cycle and move your draft forward.

Understanding the AfC pipeline is one part of the standard Wikipedia page creation process — and notability evaluations remain the central threshold every draft must clear before the AfC queue approves it for mainspace publication.